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Red Tory: How Left and Right have Broken Britain and How we can Fix It Paperback – 2 Apr 2010

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Phillip Blond (Author)
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Phillip Blond (Author)
3.2 out of 5 stars 17 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Faber & Faber; Main edition (2 April 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0571251676
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571251674
  • Product Dimensions: 15.3 x 2.4 x 20.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 235,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

'An essential pre-election read.' --GQ Magazine

'Such is the bland predictability of British politics, the territory of managerialised soundbite, that the appetite continues for Blond's intellectual equivalent of a firework display.' --Madeleine Bunting, Guardian

'His thesis makes a potent read as he tracks the history of our modern complacent society, its will crushed between markets and state. It makes sense of Cameron's mantra that there is such a thing as society, it's just not the same as the state.' --Benedict Brogan, Daily Telegraph

Book Description

In Red Tory: How Left and Right have Broken Britain and How we can Fix It, Phillip Blond outlines a radical political vision, challenges the conventions of both Left wing and Right wing politicians and overturns the long-held economic consensus of the British Establishment.

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Top Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 starsInteresting in places
By Dan Roper on 25 Aug. 2010
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This is something of a curates egg of a book. The central idea of increasing social capital is not new but is interesting to explore from a Tory perspective. Particular strengths in the book are a Tory critique of Thatcherism and exploration of an earlier Tory tradition in the form of the Primrose League. Shortcomings of Labour in power and the background to the banking crisis are well covered.

The main weakness in the book is a tendency to express what are quite straightforward ideas in over complicated language and to launch into somewhat pompous diatribes. In addition, the chapter on liberalism is particularly weak jumping between the 19th century, 1960s and present day giving no credit for any of the concepts or ideas evolving over this time. In addition, liberalism and socialism get lumped together and barely distinguished.

The book concludes with a call for a strong but smaller state and conservatism with a social conscience. By happy coincidence this leads to an endorsement of David Cameron.
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2.0 out of 5 starsThe errors outweigh the good points
By J. Goddard on 22 Feb. 2012
Format: Paperback
It's a pity, this book. There are some useful ideas about economics, politics and society here but there is also a lot wrong with it. I was a little puzzled, before the last General Election, at David Cameron's rabid enthusiasm for the 'Big Society'. I thought some of the ideas were interesting but it all sounded terribly half-baked and naive. Now I know why. It's a shame, because I sympathise with some of Blond's points. His criticisms of the role of the State and of markets in our lives are, in places, cogent and worthwhile. So much of the rest of it, though, left me bewildered at how Blond has achieved the high profile that he has. He must be cruising some kind of chattering-class zeitgeist. That seems to be enough, these days, to generate oodles of media and political interest. The quality of the analysis and ideas appears to be secondary. Was it always like this?

First of all, let no one be deceived by the 'Red Tory' title. This is as Tory an analysis of the working classes and their position as you will get. It's an older Toryism, to be sure, but you can see where his heart lies by considering the following:

1) in a book of 292 pages he devotes one line to the subject of the National Minimum Wage. This measure did a lot to lift some of the poorest workers into a better and more dignified position (and was relentlessly opposed by the Conservatives). If he really wanted to do something to improve incentives to work for benefit claimants then he and Ian Duncan-Smith would advocate the obvious; a significant increase in the National Minimum Wage. His alternatives for increasing the capital of the poor are no substitute, though worth exploring in themselves.

2) Blond never analyses behaviour change amongst the middle and upper classes.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsA Genuine Radical
By Bluntknife on 13 April 2010
Format: Paperback
This is a fascinating book and will be of interest to students of philosophy, history, economics and politics as well as the general reader. The first part is a pacy dissection of what is wrong with British society today, and contemporary politics specifically. In analysing present ills Blond offers what amounts to a brief history of post-WWII Britain, and Blond's narrative is full of intriguing insights and asides. The two chapters at the centre of the book, 'The Illiberal Legacy of Liberalism' and 'The Restoration of Ethos', are the most nakedly philosophical. Blond reminds us how a philosophical vision implicitly underlies all political decisions and actions. We need to make these visions explicit in order to better understand and critique them. In this way Blond finds the neo-liberal version of the self to be the root cause of many of our problems. What we need to find is a more positive, realistic and relational understanding of human beings.

The second part of the book offers an account of the kind of society a Red Tory government could promote: a society in which virtue and ethos are restored, in which the state is balanced by a strong civil society, and in which poor communities are 'recapitalised'. For the general reader some of these chapters are harder going as Blond describes in some detail many of the initiatives and policies a Red Tory government could persue.

This is not an easy book as it challenges many of the (liberal) assumptions most of us have absorbed from our culture, whether we consider ourselves left, right or centre politically. Many of the ideas certainly need challenging and developing, but I suspect Blond is going to be around for some time, answering his critics, and goading us to think more deeply and creatively about the kind of society we want to live in. Highly recommended.
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3.0 out of 5 starsThe boring Tory
By Ashtar Command on 15 Mar. 2015
Format: Paperback
“Red Tory” is a book by Phillip Blond, an Anglican theologian of the Radical Orthodox variety. This particular work doesn't deal with religion, however, but with British politics. Blond heads a conservative think tank called ResPublica, which at least previously supported British Prime Minister David Cameron.

The odd designation Red Tory stands for a (supposed) combination of social egalitarianism and anti-capitalism on the one hand, and traditional moral values on the other. The claim that Blond stands for egalitarianism is something of a stretch, since he explicitly sees Benjamin Disraeli, the Primrose League and various High Tories such as John Ruskin as his ideological forebears. Less visible, but always lurking in the background, is the Distributism of “Chesterbelloc”. Now, Hilaire Belloc wasn't what anyone would call an egalitarian! Indeed, Blond explicitly says in “Red Tory” that society needs a hierarchy based on virtue, and opposes high taxes on inheritance, making it possible for property-owners to pass on their property through the family line. He even says that such people need certain privileges…

That being said, “Red Tory” is nevertheless an interesting read, since Blond attempts – with varied degrees of success, to be sure – to apply a Distributist and communitarian form of conservatism to contemporary British conditions. Being equally critical of both the welfare state and the neo-liberal market (which, paradoxically, also breeds a strong state), Blond proposes to remake Britain in a more Distributist image by decentralization, the scrapping of repressive laws, a public sector controlled by the employees and users, more employee-owned businesses (“John Lewis” is his favorite), and various government-sponsored schemes to increase the savings of the poor.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsWorth a return to core themes now we have Prime Minister May

Many reviewers of Phillip Blond's Red Tory have used the word intriguing, others have also lavished greater praise - citing the fact that this former theology lecturer from the... Read more

Published 19 days ago by Michael Taylor
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Not my usual read, though helpful.

Published 5 months ago by GlennSealey
5.0 out of 5 starsHighly recommended

Superb book. Highly recommended. Converted me to 'red toryism'. This book proposes the real solution for 'moral' social conservatives unhappy with modern amoral free-market... Read more

Published 10 months ago by Greg
1.0 out of 5 starsRadical vision, poor transmission

A book that promises a re-imagined, better Britain chokes on its own verbosity and falls apart completely two thirds of the way through. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Mrs. Celia Dunphy
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

All the good stuff that Cameron forgot about as soon as he was elected.

Published 18 months ago by Mr. L. Porter
3.0 out of 5 starsRed Tory

It promised to be a good read. The qualitative analysis was very interesting but the quantitative statistics were too lengthy and frankly for me boring. Read more

Published on 24 Sept. 2012 by droyj
1.0 out of 5 starsRed Tory

There is a single idea in this book that is interesting - that an unholy alliance of statist managerialism and monopolised markets has had a stranglehold on Britain's political... Read more

Published on 29 Feb. 2012 by Matt
5.0 out of 5 starsRed Tory - well worth the read

Red Tory is a stimulating challenge to the intrasigencies of left and right. It offers a thought-provoking alternative to the empty platitudes of the now bankrupt so-called... Read more

Published on 27 May 2011 by jonrob561
1.0 out of 5 starsPoor writing, poorer thinking

As a reader interested in history, politics and public policy, I felt it necessary to read this book. Read more

Published on 11 April 2011 by Andrew Lale
1.0 out of 5 starsPromises and more promises.

Perhaps Phillip has fallen into the old trap of believing what politicians say before waiting for what they eventually do.

Published on 25 Feb. 2011 by P. G. Lee

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